4/5/23: Trump On Trial - Breaking Points Live Recording

my god, good evening. Everybody feels a little weird to say that we have an amazing show for everybody today, a primetime show with the full crew, counterpoints, breaking points, everybody coming together to right talk about the Trump indictment, the arrangement, the arrest, the drama of it all. It's just amazing. I know we did a reaction video for everybody already, Crystal, but what do we have today? Major crossover episode here, the breaking points and counterpoints, teams colliding

in real, live primetime. It's all happening. So we're going to go through everything that we learned today. Obviously, the charges were unsealed. We saw Trump in court pleading not guilty, So we're going to go through that. Get Emily and Ryan's reactions as well. Be Casager and I got to

talk about it a little bit earlier today. Talk a little bit about the potential political impact such as we know thus far, take a look at the polling that has been conducted, how the American people feel about these charges. How's it going to impact Trump for the Republican primary and potentially in the general election. We also are going to take live whatever Trump is doing this evening as being billed as a precedent. Is he going to take questions? Is it going to be more of a speech, is

he going to know? Is he going to go on for a long time? Is it going to be like tightly scripted. We will see. We'll take all of that live, and then on the other side of that, we also have legal analysts who are on sort of either side of this issue of whether or not he should have been charged in this particular case, so we can get their takes as well and ask them all the questions that we have and that you guys have, speaking of that,

Premium subscribers have been submitting questions. We're going to be going through some of those throughout the course of the night. We're going to be continuing to take a look look at them live as we are going through this stream.

So become a premium subscriber, submit your question. If you're already a premium subscriber and you have a question for any of us, or for the legal analysts, or whatever something pops up to your mind, make sure to submit those because we will be taking a look at that. That's right Breakingpoints dot Com to go ahead and sign up for that. We've already got a couple here that our producer Griffin is sending along and we will certainly get to so wow, I mean, I know, it's already

been a kind of a crazy day. Christal. We have some video some audio of some of the things that have already gone down here. What should we start with, Yeah, so let's take a look at We'll go sequentially here. First we have the specter of Trump actually arriving at the courthouse. We've got kind of like an overhead view there you can see zooming in the drone footage or helicopter footage or whatever. This is his motorcade arriving at

the courthouse, courtesy of CNN. Let's go ahead and take a look at this next picture that we have that you can see him like waving to the crowd as he steps out and walks towards the courthouse. We also did get released one image of what he actually looked like sitting there in the courtroom. And take a look at that. It's looking very sort of like bit dower, bit Dower. That's a good, good word for it. Great,

be somewhere else, what's that he'd rather be somewhere? Probably rather be somewhere else, even though this may inure to his political benefit at least of the Republican primary. Still probably not loving having to sit in court and be out of control of his circumstances in a way that he really doesn't like to be. We did get the charges unsealed. I mean, frankly, my TLDR is it's very much what we were expecting. Yeah, absolutely, thirty four counts.

It's all about falsifying business records. The whole reason that it's getting bumped up to this felony charge is because of the idea that this was a cover up that has to do with, you know, federal election fraud effectively, and there was a statement of facts that also was released that really seeks to lay out the sequence of events lay out, Okay, the stormy Daniel's payments, also talks about the Karen McDougall payments, also talks about these Doorman

payments that I completely forgot about back at the recesses of my memory. And really, is it pains to lay out some what they considered to be evidence that these payments had to do directly with the twenty sixteen campaign, And of course legally that is extremely significant. The whole reason that John Edwards was not found guilty on his campaign charges because they couldn't determine that the payments were

directly about the campaign. Of course, Trump's defense will say, oh, this could have been about saving his marriage or any number of other things. So there had been some speculation Ryan ahead of time that perhaps there were some other pieces here, maybe there'd be a conspiracy charge. They were digging into Karen mcdo McDougall, maybe there was something in there that we really didn't even know about that he had uncovered in the process of this investigation. Not so much.

And you did see Karen McDougall show up in the statement of facts, but not in the indictment. Yes, it seems like bad luck for the prosecutors in that the National Inquirer's attorney was like, Eh, this could be a crime, so let's not do this if it says that in the statement of facts. That basically, and the most guilty Trump appears in the entire thing is when he's on tape with Cohen saying, why don't we do this payoff in cash? Yes? And Cohen's like, cash one hundred and

fifty thousand dollars in cash. Now, let's let's do a check. And then they figure out, you know, complicated ways that they can move this check. And then but then Naami, which is the Inquirer, they end up paying for it instead, and there's some agreement according to Cohen, that they're going to reimburse them, but then the National Acquirer General Council is like, no, like why are you going to do this? Yes?

The best part that, the best thing they have to show that this is election related and not millennia and shame related was Trump trying to slow walk the payment to Stormy Daniels passed the election and then saying to her, guess what, you're screwed twice now and we're not paying you at all. Yeah, which shows that because you know, let her say it publicly what you're still planning on being married to Malania. So that really does like make the point that it is about election. It was about

the election. I have that part of the statement of fact, Emily that I can reach to you and get your top line reactions. Here they write that the defendant that's Trump, directed lawyer A, that's Michael Cohen to delay making a payment to Stormy Daniels as long as possible. Trump instructed Michael Cohen that if they could delay the payment until after the election, they could avoid paying altogether, because at that point it would not matter if the story became public.

As reflected in emails text messages between and among lawyer A, Lawyer B, and the AMI editor in chief that's David Packer, Michael Cohen attempted to delay making the payment as long as possible. So, I mean, that really jumped out at me as well, because of course, it's very difficult to prove what somebody's mindset was at the time, like was this just for the campaign or was it for the mayor, or was it some sense of shame from Trump that

we've you know, heretofore never seen before. Could be right, this is as close to Trump just being like, this is one hundred percent only about the campaign and after I'm elected, I do not care about it as you could possibly get. Yeah, and I mean we all kind of know that instinctually. I mean, Donald Trump, he's Donald Trump. He's been talking to the tabloids about his personal sexual

relationships for decades. But in this particular case, he can still come back because even with that, he can still come back and say, well, they weren't going to raise the issue if I'm not a candidate. So here's why. That's my reasoning, because it doesn't matter if I'm not a candidate to them, not just to me, to them.

And so that's where you get into a case which is so far from clear cut that it's painful for me because again, it's very much an unprecedented I've heard a lot of people on the right call this like a crossing the Rubicon moment where you're charging a former president. Now that's not to say that Donald Trump has done absolutely nothing worthy of being charge. I think we're all we can all look at numerous different allegations against Donald Trump,

and maybe that's the most important takeaway from today. So that this is the tip of the iceberg. There have already been allegations raised in the Washington Post in the last couple of days about what the Special Council is finding. I think those are strategic leaks along the lines of what we saw from Russia Gate. But there have already been there's already leaking suggesting that case is much more serious than people realize. We've heard legal analysts like Barr.

Barr himself has said that that case is turning out to be very, very serious. You have Georgia and a hungry da in Georgia who looks like she wants to do the same thing. So this really could be just the beginning for Donald Trump. Yeah, I absolutely agree with you. Yeah, from everybody that I've seen as well, the most serious mightded legal analysts that I trust. Everybody's like, look, I think this one is pretty frivolous. I'm not even sure if it's necessarily going to pass the smell test for

a judge. They're like, but on the classified documents one, that one's a real problem because a you have the obstruction charge. B all they have the ability to a subpoena the Secret Service about Trump himself and his own relationship like cifling through these documents. He also have his lawyers violating their attorney client privilege because he basically got them to maybe possibly lie on his behalf, making it

materially interesting. I do want to come back though, to the facts of why we're all gathered here today, this specific arrest indict today, Why are we gathered here today? I think it's very interesting ran we are talking here at the end of the day about this campaign crime. And by the way, I will say, personally, I believe that Trump is guilty as hell on the campaign. That said, he is not guilty in the eyes of the law because the federal authorities who have jurisdiction over this crime

never charged him. Interestingly enough, what's happened is that in twenty twenty one, with this campaign charge, it was specifically decided by federal prosecutors not to indict Trump after he left the White House. I know that initially there was also the bar case of making prosecutors drop the charges against Trump, saying we're going to abide by DOJ guidance.

We cannot indict a sitting president. Second, and this is what's interesting in terms of what you have to prove A, is it even possible for a Manhattan DA to prove the commission of this campaign finance fraud in New York State given the fact that New York State law here is not actually what governs the overall campaign infrastructure, because

that's what ultimately what Michael Cohen pled guilty to. The reason, guys, that we're spending time on this is because the way that all of this becomes a felony is that the bookkeeping charge itself has to be made in the commission and the cover up of a separate crime. And in that what they have to prove is a it's never been tried before to try and prove a federal crime as a cover up crime in New York State. And Two,

as I understand it, it can't just help. It can't just be for this crime to have been to help the campaign. For example, painting the outside of your business or settling lawsuits are our campaign expenditures. It has to actually be the sole purpose, like polling or rent for HQ. Now, from the messages itself, I would personally say if I were to represented this on a federal grand jur or a federal jury, yeah, I would be like, this is

probably the sole purpose. That's it. I mean, look, there are eleven other peers that would have to agree with me. Trump would be able to mount a competent defense, and I think that's why we're all going to have to spend so much time in not even whether he looks guilty. He absolutely looks guilty, but he's in the eyes of

the law, he's not guilty of this crime. Has not been convicted of this game, right, it has not been convicted of this crime well in federal court, which is where ultimately the actual jurisdiction of this charge takes place, which is why again we're all gathered here and why thirty four counts of felony actual bookkeeping fraud we're charged against Trump. So we have to spend a ton of time on it. Yeah, I mean, I do think there is a New York state election law that they are

also invoking here that is relevant to the case. And these are all details that I definitely want to ask both of our legal guests about to zoom on for a second, Like I sort of can't help but laugh at this whole scenario because of everything that Trump did, right, trying to steal the election and alleged hide these dog is sorting through the documents after he was told that you have to hand him over, and he claimed to handle like all the stuff that he did not to

mention this, you know, war crimes that we just take for granted that American presidents all commit. At this point. Of all those things, it's some like tawdry horn star bullshit.

And in some ways it's like, actually right, I mean, it's like I couldn't help laughing to myself about like that, it's this one that's the first one to drop, because in some ways it is kind of perfect and gets this juxtaposition of all the different lenses that you can view Donald Trump through, Like is he just this sort of like ridiculous reality star who like bumbled his way tripped over his own dick into the White House? Right?

Or is he this like you know, fascist mastermind inciting his supporters to go and you know, riot at the Capitol and with these elaborate schemes to overturn the election. And I mean, I guess the answer is a little bit of both. But that's why you know, I've got I just have a lot of complex feelings about this because the other piece of this is I would like to see more white collar criminals prosecuted, not less. I would like to see more former presidents prosecuted, not less.

So when I hear these, you know this hand, oh my God, the president and God forbid that we like hold future presidents accountable for their crimes, I'm like, good, that would be a good thing. On the other hand, I do look at this and feel that it is far from the worst thing that Trump did in office, as not even close to the worst thing meant Obama did in office or Bush did in office, let alone

Donald Trump. Yeah, and what it seems like they're trying to do is to not break the precedent of prosecuting former presidents, and so they take something that no other president is ever going to do, and that's have some type of a that's true Trump and the other things too, completely reckless handling of classified information. Like even the worst war criminals that we've had last four years their sensitive

even by their mustang. But he's not. He's not like going through he's not touching it, moving it around and lying to people, lying to his own lawyers, And it would be unseemly, it would be unseemly, not to have

the help do it for you. Yeah, exactly. And the corruption that is that circles Trump all of the time, and you know that you could have you could have prosecuted him over the Postal Museum that, yeah, the little Trump a little Trump restaurant that I had, and he's got all of these foreign governments overpaying and then telling him, hey, we're overpaying for this particular thing, and then he and

his family walk out like fabulously rich. But to go after that would set a precedent, Yes, that you're going to start prosecuting those types of crimes. And even though Trump is more brazen about it, the rest are still doing it within the same cut. Like that's that's such

a That's actually a really great point. You're not going to have a problem where you're like Joe Biden paid hush money to a porn star probably right, maybe Yeah's son, but he's not a president, so you can prosecute hunder right, theoretically he doesn't have a dog. I do like your point, though, Ryan,

and I think that's why it's important. You know, if we were thinking about Bush, you know, if I put on my Fahrenheit nine to eleven days, you know, It's like, well, if we do start going after profits and all that, maybe we have to start talking about the Carlisle group.

It's like, oh, no, I can't be doing that. There's too there are way too many people in this town who are not maybe one of them the governor of Virginia, from many other people who are far too connected and wealthy off of a system like that, or even Jared could. I mean, that's always the one that fascinates me, the far violations that all of these former presidents and their aids are all deeply entangling from the Bush family, Obama and his White House Chief of staffs now working for

TikTok as a lobbyist. Like, what the hell is going on here when you're looking at that that's well accepted within the realm of corruption. Trump, you have to go after him, as you said, for what we all know him as as the reality TV star. We do, though, have the video of Alvin Bragg that I think is actually worth playing. That gets to what we were discussing here about the legal theories under which the eventual indictment actually took place. We're going to go ahead and play

a six here, guys. Let's take a listen to that. Under New York state law is a felony to falsify business records with intent to the fraud and an intent to conceal another crime. That is exactly what this case is about. Thirty four false statements made to cover up other crimes. These are felony crimes in New York State. No matter who you are, we cannot and will not normalize serious criminal conducts. So that's what he was getting at there, Crystal. In terms of the charges that he

laid out. Interestingly, I do want to note that initially in the statement of fact, there was a mention of taxes. Now you and I immediately picked up on that in our reaction video, because the reason is that Jeff Bragg actually does have a jurisdiction over in New York State taxes obviously, but in the three crimes that Bragg lays out in his statement, not one of them that he

mentioned actually had anything to do with taxes. Ryan, Emily, did you guys pick up on that he spot talks specifically about defrauding the public in terms of a campaign finance violation, then pointing as you said, Crystal, to the New York state campaign law, and then third, the actual bookkeeping fraud itself, that though, is the misdemeanor, the actual cover up crime. He is solely focusing here on campaign finance.

Ryan Emily, what did you guys make of that? Well, that's how you get it too where he needs it to be. That's when you get it to the level of severity where you can go and make a statement like that and pitch it to the public. Is saying this is worth prosecuting a former president over, Yes, And so I think that's where I think that's where that's coming from. It's partially legal maneuver. Let me read from the statement of fact is to dig into what Soger

is referencing here. They do go to some length to lay out that they sort of structured these page mints to be deceitful and probably tax advantageous in a way that could indicate frauds. So it is interesting that they didn't use that as like, oh, this is the cover up that we're using to get it to a felony account. So they say that the Trump organizations, CFO and lawyer A that's Michael Cohen, agreed to a total repayment of

four hundred and twenty k they reached that figure. Oh blah blah blah, don't care how they reached that figure. The Trump Organization's CFO then doubled the amount to three sixty so that Lawyer A could characterize the payment as income on his tax returns instead of a reimbursement, and Lawyer A would be left with one hundred and eighty

K after paying about fifty percent in income taxes. Finally, the Trump Organization CFO add an additional sixty K as a supplemental year un bonus, is that nice for him? You're in crime. Bonus got his man electric president. That's what an insane way to run a business. Can I just say that together these amounts total forms aka that Trump Organization's CFO memorialize these calculations in handwritten notes on the copy of the bank statement that Lawyer A had provided.

So and there are some other things here about taxes, but that was the primary paragraph that was focused on the way they structured payments and how they didn't really record it properly from a tax perspective. And I guess what I heard earlier today, and I'm becoming like a legal expert on the inticracies. This particular type of business fraud is that the cover up doesn't have to be of your own crime. It could be of anyone's crime. So if Michael Cohen is guilty of tax fraud here,

it could have been in service of that. But again to Sager's point, that isn't actually the theory that Bragg seems to have leaned into. Whatever right, and what they seem to be doing is that if they had the list it as a reimbursement, then they'd have to say, well, what was it a reimbursement for? And so it's really in furtherance of the cover up, so that they called it income so that they don't have to talk about

why they did it. But I think that saying that Cohen Trump is trying to cover up a crime that Cohen committed doesn't comport with what we understand about Trump. Trump has never done anything for anybody else ever, true, This would be the first two x that he ever committed on behalf of other people romantic. As you've mentioned before Valentine's Day, if you read it February fourteenth, twenty seventeen, Ryan often rightfully points out Trump doesn't get the credit

he deserves being romantic. Oh, yes, true and true. Here we are, nobody's mentioning it. Yeah, it is silent, that's true. I do you remember covering at the White House. You always made sure to mention Milania. I guess that's the

bare minimum that you do for your beloved wife. But well, yeah, yeah, I mean the problem seems to be it all comes back to the question of whether there was a crime, and we can all think there was, but it does seem problematic for a county prosecutor to be able to try to persuade a county jury that a federal crime was committed when the federal prosecutors themselves declined to pro because take it away from think about out the president,

that that would set because then you don't need jurisdiction anymore. Any county prosecutor can say, well, here's you know, the book. These bookkeeping errors were made in quick books, and quick books exist in Montgomery, Alabama. Yeah, that's right, so we're prosecuting. I think that's a really, really important point because the people who are cheerleading this particular situation, I think all

of us sort of share this ambivalence. We don't really know in that bigger picture question, how to think about this from thirty thousand feet whether it's a net good or a net bad. But something in my gut definitely says it's a net bad for the reason Ryan just suggested, which is that there is some merit to the Banana Republic argument when you have to do legal gymnastics to prosecute a former president in a case that actually is weak compared to potential other cases that are out there.

And so when you start setting dangerous precedents, the people who are cheerleading this as a victory for democracy, who are constantly accusing Donald Trump of being the antithesis of democracy, being the ultimate villain in the Great Story the Great arc of Democracy, may actually be doing an equal amount of damage to that question of democracy. So let me provide the counterview, just to put it out there, which is, you know, kind of similar to what Alvin Bragg said.

I don't think anyone here is denying that Trump committed some crimes with regard to this particular situation. It looks like a misdemeanor. Yeah, And by the way, Michael, by the way, let me also say that while it's certainly not anywhere close to the worst thing that he did at the time that he was making these payments. This was in the fallout of Access Hollywood, and now in hindsight we realized he was able to overcome that and

win the election over Hillary. But at the time they were deeply concerned that if you had Karen McDougall and Stormy Daniels and all of this litany of whatever come out at the time, that it would damage his campaign and he would lose. There's some merint to that that

is possible. So all of the concerned about like Russian memes and whatever, there's no doubt that this sequence of events and their attempt to hide these stories and to engage in book keeping fraud and campaign finance violations and whatever to cover it up, it wasn't nothing. And I do feel like, Okay, if any of us had committed this sort of fraud, like we would probably have the book thrown at us. It doesn't require legal gymnastics to

see that there were there was wrongdoing here. And so if you truly want a system where you know there's not two tier system of justice, then you know it's appropriate for him to have to face consequences for this, even as it doesn't rise to the level of some of the other crimes that he committed, Like the fact that he committed other worst crimes doesn't negate the fact that there were lower level things that were done here,

I think. But then I think to stretch them to fellow new a different So you do the legal gymnastics to get to felony level. I do think it's a different question. I agree with that, and I grew with your point about I would love to see more white collar criminals right. I would love to talk about how Biden is implicated in Hunter. Biden's like very shady lobby, and I think there's something very real there. I think we should have those conversations. We could go back to

Bush and Obama and have those conversations. We could talk about what's happening with TikTok right now and lobbying and all of that. But at the end of the day, I also think we need to have a sort of consensus as a country on what that looks like, and we just don't. In a very scary way. We can go back to Komi talking about Hillary Clinton essentially being guilty but not raising to the level that a prosecutor would bring the case well and that's and that's where

I'm like, maybe they like I'm good with Herbie. Yeah, it's been a while since this Exactually, if this brings us actually to where basically answering or debating a premium question, so as we'll take our first This is from than girlick reciprocity. Do you think this indictment and if convicted, the conviction will make it easier more acceptable to invite or change charge other politicians for their various crimes? Longtime follower love breaking points and you guys, we love you

to ethan. I mean that kind of gets to what we're discussing. I guess it all just comes back to the original point that Ryan made, is well, what crimes are we talking about here? So insider trading? Yeah, let's go. Let's roll right, Like, let the SEC and the federal prosecutors that said that hasn't ever happened. I mean, even in one of the most clear cut cases ever, the Richard Burr case, straight up insider trading. The FBI sees

his phone, nothing happened to the guy. Still haven't heard anything about it two or three years later, and somehow, you know, we're all twisting ourselves in the knots here Manhattan DA is to indict felony bookkeeping fraud on thirty four different counts. That is where we could see, obviously

the dichotomy of what this might look like. So do you guys think that this will pave the way to the type of crimes that I think all of us, including especially the Breaking Points audience, wants to see politics actually get charged with. I honestly don't think so. I actually just think Ryan's point stands. The establishment is still so strong, but the establishment might not be able to

contain what they unleash. I think that they're doing this on purpose this way so that they can try to coord and off themselves from any type of future accountability. But there will be so much appetite for revenge next time around, like, well, if you did this, so now we're going to come for you. And when they start to come for their opposition, they're going to go for whatever. And so they might end up and there might be so much pressure on them to make a case that

they might have to make an actual corruption case. Well, and then the Supreme Court will say that there is no sing as we forgot. I fundamentally think the obstacle to that happening is the media's disinterest. I think you can't fix this without a genuinely curious and skeptical fourth estate. I think this is a media if I think we were all watching MSNBC and CNN today. Fortunately I now forced myself to do it for everybody here. It is though well, I needed to know. What I needed was

to see every inch of Trump's day. I wanted to watch it, but a second by second breakdown on camera. But in all honesty, so long as you have MSNBC, CNN, Washington Post, New York Times, the entire corporate media establishment cheerleading for the selective prosecution, let's set this case aside. Let's talk about the entire I think approach to Trump while also ignoring or doing what they did in the lead up to the twenty twenty election with the hunter

Biden's story. Again, I'm not trying to make I'm not trying to draw equivalences here. I'm just trying to say it is obvious the media has a pattern of selective prosecution, selective interest in corruption. They'll have interesting corruption if it's an anti establishment Democrat, they'll have an interesting corruption if

it's an anti establishment Republican. It doesn't matter. They are a uniparty in favor of the political establishment, so as long as they control the political discourse in this country, I don't think this changes things. I think maybe it does pave the way for prosecutors maybe in Red states, And Grind's right, there is a there's a question of precedent here. If you start having prosecutors in Red States

do one thing. But if the media tells the public that that's bullshit and what Bragg did is totally legitimate, then it's a that's a huge obstacle. I sort of

buy the idea, you know. I think about thinking, here we are twenty years later in Rock War, like thinking a lot back over that whole trajectory, and the media journalists who like were stenographers for who the Bush administration and who fed these lies and not only suffered no professional consequences, many of them are like wealthier and more powerful than ever before. Many of them are central like

players and commentators in this hole. Literally lie. There are no consequences to Ryan's point, to committing a crime or telling a lie, or making a giant mistake as long as it's in the like accepted DC way in service of like whatever the establishment narrative is, or I think

to carry it over into relevance. Like with the criminal legal world, if you're doing the same crimes that everybody else is doing, you're probably safe because they're not going to want to open the can of worms of like, oh, let's actually be serious about insider trading, let's actually be serious about corruption, let's actually be serious about war crimes,

because everyone's implicated. And so I do think that the things that will that this opens the door for are the more like, more brazen or more outside of the traditional carved out space of DC crime. I think those are the pieces that are likely to be prosecuted more. And I can't say that that's like that. I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry that it won't also touch the sort of parts of you know, criminality in DC that just become accepted as the part of doing business here.

But the idea of more politicians facing more charges for the crimes that they commit, I'm not going to cry about that one h I think, well, why don't we talk about the politics erstual and the rules and all of that, so I know that we have a little bit Yeah, so let's go ahead, let's go and put the CNN poll. This is the most recent one out about how people feel about the actual charges. Now, I do want to say this pre dates us actually getting to see the specific charges, but everybody had a pretty

good idea of where we were headed with these. So go ahead and put b one up on the screen from CNN. What you can see is that it breaks down unsurprisingly on long party lines. Ninety four percent of Democrats approve of the decision from Alvin Bragg to indict Trump, seventy nine percent of Republicans disapprove, sixty two percent of Independence approve, and overall you have a solid majority sixty

percent of Americans who approve of Trump's indictment. And my analysis of this, then I'd be curious what you guys think, is that you know, you've got about sixty percent of the country that really doesn't like Trump, and they don't

actually care that much about the details. They feel like and I kind of understand like they feel like this is a man who has gotten away with so much so long that now I'm going to be like, oh, what not this was like oh, and you're going to stretch it to a fellow I don't know about that, So I think you just get a gut it's a

Rush Act test. Like, if you think Trump has been a lawless criminal for a lot of his life, then you're not going to like be worried that Alvin Bragg, you know, stretch the definition of the charge or whatever. You're gonna be like, good, this dude is finally getting

what's coming to him. And if you're on the other side of that, and you like Trump and you believe in him, and you think he's been unfairly treated, then you're gonna obviously be opposed also, no matter what the specific details are, because let's not pretend that that forty percent or so or all the you know, seventy nine percent of Republics who are against these charges wouldn't also be against January sixth charges, wouldn't also be against the

class my document charges, wouldn't also be against like fake elector scheme charges. What do you guys think? Go ahead, Ryan, Yeah, there's right. I think I think that's what. I think. It's well said. So the fact that the charges basically came out exactly as people kind of thought they were a means we can basically I think extrapolate from that

to where we are today. Emily, I'd be curious how you square that with the Trump camp celebration today of what a political win this is for them, because I also part of me also feels like they're not wrong about that. Oh, it is a political win. More than half the country wants him in jail. It's we're in

such an amazing place right now. Wherever there's a black and white Trump has succeeded in terms of wherever the political establishment creates it, like impeachments is a good example, creates a situation where it looks unprecedented, or it looks like a witch hunt, whatever. Whenever that happens, Trump benefits

from it. But that's a very different question. I think when you have Hillary Clinton not as the foil, when you potentially have a Joe Biden presidency in the rear view mirror where he's passed legislation that some people really like, I think that all changes the equation. Trump's internal polling. This is from Philip Blagmann to RCP. He told he was He reported that Trump's internal campaign polling looks like Trump v. DeSantis fifty one twenty one, fifty one twenty

one Trump v. Biden forty seven forty three. Yeah, so he his internals have him up on Biden. Now, I don't know how good those numbers are the Trump campaign. Obviously, it makes sense that they're going out there with us and celebrating it. It's not helpful ever in a general election. I think that's a ridiculous thing for Republicans to say. I think it's a cope that Republicans are saying five to ten percent of the country who would answer, I

think these charges are good. Yeah, and I was supporting for president. Yeah. Actually, honestly, there definitely are. But there are the number because ten percent of the country that feels that way. But that's another importance thing to emphasize.

Let me try on that is he said. Trump said repeatedly on the campaign trail, that makes me smart, when he talked about the way he exploited tax leopoles, when he talked about whereas Joe Biden will never address the fact that he routed his book money through an escort. Trump Joe Biden. Donald Trump would come out and be like, hell, yeah, and it makes me smart. He'd be like, you would do the same thing. It's baked into the Trump cake, and I think that sucks. I don't think that's a

great precedent to set at all. I never liked it, and I think it made conservatives look really foolish a lot of the time. But it's completely expected Donald Trump and people know that that's how he This is the interesting thing I want to pick up on the politics

front of this. Let's go to the next ones. Chrystally, you and I spent some time on this in our show with the tear sheet b Tube, guys, please In the same poll, sixty two percent of Americans, including ninety three percent of Republicans, seventy percent of independence and sixty six percent of Democrats, they're like, yeah, we do think it was motivated by politics though, so like even the people who all support the case and do think that he's guilty or you know, not necessarily in the case

of Republicans, they're like, yeah, I still think it's political. So if you do think it's but then see that's where I come back to what you said, Ryan, where they're like, yeah, I definitely think he's guilty, but you know, it's a wash and I don't like Joe Biden, so yeah, I think it was political, and yes, it doesn't really matter to me. I'm I'm voting more on gas prices or Ukraine or the economy, or Biden can't speak, or Trump is whatever those people like. When things are political,

it's a wash like this used to come back. I used to always come back to this, you know, after twenty sixteen. Before twenty sixteen, everyone's I can't believe Trump's approval rating, by the way, as if Hillary's wasn't as bad. But the case was, he still had some sixty six million people who were willing to vote for him. Two thirds said I do not like this man. I don't like him, and then he got ten million more votes the second time around, after like, I hate this guy.

I would never let in my house. I would not be friendsized person. I don't want to be around. I don't want him as a neighbor. But I'm going to vote for him for president of the United States. I mean, look, I get it right, Like that's a deep animating thing in our politics. That's what you get. Have two likely nominees that are profoundly unpopular, one of whom is like sundowning before our eyes, and the next heart beat away is someone who is even more unpopular in these two guys.

So yeah, you have people who were like, I literally want this man in prison, and also but I hate not sure of the air. And it's the same thing with Jeb Bush. It's like most Republican primary voters in twenty sixteen voted against Donald Trump, which at the time was a vote against Donald Trump. It wasn't like you were just, oh, I'm really I'm a big Rubio person. People were a big Rubio person, but they were or cruise or whatever. It was spread out between many, many people,

but they mostly were taking votes against Donald Trump. If you're voting for Donald Trump, you're voting for Donald Trump. And that again has continued over and over because the foil is Jeb freaking Bush, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and who's at next, Gavin Newsome Andrew Cuomo. I mean, seriously, like it just it. It's exactly why we are where we are because there is no serious answer from the republic Her Democratic Party to Donald Trump or to the

some of the arguments he makes that have validity. They don't all well, but some of them, so I think we all will probably agree in terms of the Republican primary this is nothing but good for him. The trial is going to be playing out like at the height of the prime I mean, nothing could be four Literally, Desanta should just not run. I'm actually like, at this point, you heard this is kind of his moment. I just don't see it. I don't see it. So we'll put

that in motion to dismiss. But yeah, yeah, well, yes, true, we'll put that to the side because I do think the impact on the general election is a lot less clear. And here's why. I could see a world where it's basically a wash, where people just you know, they know all this stuff about Trump. They live through January sixth, they live through the fake electors. It's sort of like baked into the cake. They're also not happy with Joe Biden,

and so it's sort of a jump ball. But we did see ryan in the midterm elections that Trump was a real wait around the GOP and specifically because of January sixth and stop the Steal and all of the chaos, and him and his candidates were very much repudiated. So if you have overhanging the general election in twenty twenty four, him dealing with legal woes to do with you know, January six documents stop the steal all of those sorts

of things. I do think that that could be much more damaging to him than honestly I would have thought before the midterm results. Yeah, and the raid on mar A Lago played so handily into Democratic fortunes that there was a lot of speculation that Democrats did it just for the purpose of getting Trump back into the midterms

either way, no matter how the decision was made. Once that decision was made, Democrats wanted to talk about nothing else other than trumpep and they used mar A Lago and this document handling as the excuse to do that, and that it did seem to work like that did seem to drag Republicans down there. And so you know, Democrats have no credibility whatsoever on this question because in twenty sixteen, Hillary Clinton did her pied piper thing. She's like, this is the guy that we're going to be able

to easily beat. We know how that ended, right, Yet twenty twenty they were convinced they could beat him, and they beat him. Twenty twenty two, they wont him out in the field. They thought it would help them. It did help them, So maybe they've won some of their credibility back on this playing with fire because they've also gone out and played in all these Republican primaries, helping all these MAGA candidates win huge taking a huge risk with in the future of the country. I think they

won every single one of those. So they do seem like they want this guy out. Oh, look to me, it's one of those where how can you disaggregate stop the steal from abortion? Because abortion was such a clear, massive and winner for the Democrats that you could be learning the wrong lesson, like how much to stop the steel matter? We actually really don't know, and then how

much did stop the steal? Insanity play into Well, if they're willing to go full our word on stop the steal, like, does that mean they will do the same thing whenever it comes to abortion. Man, whenever somebody says then you're an extremist, you're like, yeah, maybe I should just sit this one out. Trump, though, is actually a lot smarter than most Republicans on abortion. He actively is missing himself from Ropers's way. He's like, yeah, I got it done. But also I wouldn't be doing what a lot of

these other people are doing. There's not a single other Republican literally in the entire country who is willing to do that, let alone the most popular person. So I don't think it would be as easy to like beat over the head for Joe Biden and others. Same thing whenever it comes to Medicare, social Security. But you could say whatever you want about the man, especially on tax policy, but on entitlements itself, you could not attack him saying that this is something that you wanted to do. So

what do you think about that? Emily? Like in the general election, Lens, I just I respect Trump too much as a politician to say, do not ever count this man out. Yeah, I know he's a clown, but listen, you know, clown got a lot of votes. He has political skills, weirdly, and I think part of that comes from being an entertainer of course, with people, as people

have mentioned over the years. But I do think it's it's important that everything we're talking about gets this issue of polarization and that what one thing energizes the Republican turnout democratic turner. I actually think we're going to get a hint of this in Wisconsin Supreme Court election, which I know we're going to talk about a little bit tonight. Yeah, just in terms of turnout. You know, when you have a third of the country in the camp, that's like,

prosecute him. It's political, but it's still okay because we got to get him on something like he's done so many things over the years. We got to get him on something he deserves that he's skated too many times. When you have that thirty percent and thirty percent, that's like, which hunt, this is how I end up going out to vote, et cetera, et cetera. Then you have that like remaining portion of the country, maybe the normal portion of the country, that's just like, what the hell is

going on? I'm exhausted by this. We litigated Stormy Daniels four years ago, five years ago. Why am I hearing the name again? Like, I don't know who Kerry McDougall is, but I've heard the name a million times. I just don't care. So I think it's just really hard to say about the general election until we know where the economy is, where Joe Biden is, until we see, for instance, where the Documents case goes, where the Georgia case goes.

This is really the tip of the iceberg. One thing we know for sure is that there are other cases, and there will be other developments in those cases before the election, and so in that way, it's just very hard to imagine we know definitively which little block gets animated enough to tilt an election that historically with Trump has been a slim margin. No matter what, Let's go ahead, let's do some questions here from the premium subscribers and guys,

use the AMA. If you are premium subscriber, use the AMA function that you all know and love. If you are not a premium subscriber, you can still become a premium subscriber. Bringpoints dot com and then you can submenty your questions. Okay, Talon Mahaski, what happens if Trump goes to prison and gets elected? It's a great question, Hi, Cryslin Sagar. You've mentioned previously on the podcast that Eugene Debs set the precedent for receiving votes while in prison

in that instance the camp at lost. Is there any roadmap or guidelines for what would happen if Trump were to be found guilty in any of the upcoming cases and if he were to win the election. No, there is no roadmap. There also is no guideline. What complicates this even more is you can't try a sitting president and actually the significant amount of legal immunity that you get whenever you become president. So whenever you become the president elect, he wouldn't be entitled to any of those

legal protections. But however, whenever you would become the president, then actually that would change everything, especially potentially in terms of new charges. Obviously, it would be totally uncharted territory. I've actually asked for people who know there. As far as others know, there is no existing DOJ guidance around

any of this. It never got to this point during Nixon, obviously because he was going to be forced out of office, and then Ford with the preemptive pardon for any and all crimes, also removed what it would look like secret service detail and all that. I believe that's the last

time it was ever seriously considered by the United States government. So, as you alluded to Eugene Debs, who was the socialist candidate in that in that election, I think he actually won a decent amount of the it was like four percent or something like that. It was it was not it was not an insignificant number of votes. But obviously I think that was one hundred years ago now at this point, and in terms of the development for pre existing guidance what you asked for talent, there is no roadmap,

There is no guideline. So we'll all find out together. Do you read about Debs in your new book? No too now, too early? Yeah? Yeah, interesting guy though, Yes it was the espionage yet he was giving anti World War One speeches, that's right, And they said, well, you're messing with the you're messing with our ability to recruit though boys to go over and save the world from democracy. Right, But I guess Trump would he'd be sworn in in his cell. Is that how that would have to work?

Now he commander in chief? Could he order a seal team raid on the jail and bust himself out. Nothing requires of the president actually to be sworn in at the Capitol. They only need to get sworn in by a federal j like LBJ sworn in on LBJ. Harry Truman was sworn in in the White House. I'm trying to think about some of the other ones who are some of them actually didn't even take the oath of office.

Until days later, which is kind of crazy from a commander in chief perspective because you're like, are technically in charge of the government or not. Part of the reason why LBJ wanted to take the oath. So maybe you if you followed the logic, if you can't try a prosecutor, so you can't jail I mean you can't a president. You can't sentence. You can't jail one either. You pause his sentence, he serves his term, and then he goes

right back right when he finishes. I do want to note for everybody it is eight fifteen that is technically the start time for the Trump press conference. We're on watch. We are taking a look at that. The moment that he comes out and he's actually up on the stage, we'll bring into all of you. Yeah, and don't forget also, I don't we are still going to also try and cover the Wisconsin election in Chicago mayor e. Well, so we're not only going to be talking about these are

huge I was refreshing my memories asn't a president. But do you guys know Jim traffic hand is yeah, yeah, he actually held This is funny. He held the seat that Tim Ryan represented in Youngstown, and Ryan was actually an aid for him at one point. And then trafficant was found guilty on ten felon accounts of all kinds of stuff, and then he gets expelled from Congress. So I mean that was like sort of he was sort of sentenced to prison and then kicked out of Congress.

And then when he gets out, he tried to run again, and Ryan runs against him and beats him. But that's sort of the closest that I can think of in modern history to a member of Congress or elected official being directly like in prison while trying to serve an office.

It also could become constitutional because there would be all these questions up to the Supreme Court, because then also they could make an argument around like election certification at the state level, as whether you would even certify vote for like the elector why would the electoral college then cast a vote for somebody who was actively in president. Yeah, this would be really interesting. Yeah. So you guys remember Don Blankenship in West Virginia. He's a primary campaign, that's right.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Oh wow, man, isn't he the any I think he did cocaine? Mitch question all right, Evan lamarca premium subscriber again, you can become one, or if you're a pre existing one, submit them on the AMA question Hello, breaking points. If former President Trump wins the twenty twenty four election, do you think he will forgive and forget the actions taken by the legal system?

Are we looking at the same Trump here, Evan? Is there a chance that Hunter Biden or President Biden will then face charges because of retribution by Trump? Will this set a dangerous president for future presidents and presidential candidates?

Let's put the precedent aside, because I think we've already answered that one Trump himself, Emily, what do you think My take is is that he would ask the DOJ and try to get Jeff Sessions or whoever the future type of person like that would be to do so, but that they probably wouldn't do it, because that's basically

exactly what happened all throughout his entire presidency. Yes, but he learned from that, and that's where then, and that's where I think it gets really interesting, is that you know, from Schedule F to everything else, one of the big elements of this transition phase that the conservative movement is looking at right now. They see this as a potential transition phase to another Trump presidency, to a desantist presidency.

They're trying to staff up. They're trying to actually vet people in advance of a potential Republican presidency to staff the administrative state and some of these really high level appointments. They are. If there's one thing that is animating that effort, it's to get the right people that will follow those sort of directives. Now, there were a lot of people, even in the sort of Trump friendly conservative legal movement after the twenty twenty election, who said, now, like this

stuff is nonsense. Should they have been more vocal, perhaps, but there were a lot of people who disagreed on that point. Mike Pence is actually one of them. Mike Pence actually sought out Council on the legitimacy of that legal argument, which was dead on arrival to a lot of people's ears. But he actually went out and said, is their legitimacy to this? And a lot of people in that world him no. But that said, Donald Trump knows damn well that that's what blocked a lot of

his agenda. You said, Jeff Sessions accusing himself from the Russia investigation, it's still rank of Donald Trump, so I think he's really learned a lesson from that. So in another Trump presidency, I think, frankly, there's a question of whether you could possibly find enough people to do that. So I think that's a legitimate question, But I also

think that is their top priority. I mean, I am a little skeptical always Ryan when I see these articles about like, oh, this time is going to be different and Trump learned is this time it's going to be highly competent from the top down, and they get the planned in place. It's like, you know, he did have four years to figure some of this stuff out and

he never did. So I'm a little skeptical that it would be this well oiled machine a second time around, with everybody in police to like do his bidding or the bidding of the conservative ecosystem or whatever the goal timately is. They don't call it the shallow state. It's a deep You're not gonna be able to come in with just a couple of dudes who were really charged up, like go do this do it all? How funny was it? See Boris today? I was some of these people. It's

like they're characters that never died. I mean Jason. Look, I'll say this about Jason, he actually is pretty good at his job, like relative to almost everybody else I've dealt with him. Also on the he understands the assignment. He is exactly you know what it is. He understands the assignment. And also Trump really trusts him, and that's something very rare. Some of the people around Trump. I will just say, that's some of the dumbest people I've

ever met. No, no, only the best, the best. Yeah, I mean that aside, Crystal, I get to your point. I think you're correct, which is fundamentally I just don't believe it. I'm like, I actually saw this movie before. There's no reason to believe that literally anything has changed. Everybody's like, oh, but this time they're gonna vet the appointees. They're the president on day one is supposed to appoint

some five thousand people to government. How many people actually are going to check that box of what you just alluded to? Maybe two hundred, maybe three hundreday bakers. H Yeah, It's like where are all these people coming from? Like, you know, you actually need and also you know, to work for the federal government. I'm not even saying I support this, but they're all kinds of like license You're like, you know, I have to be a lawyer. If you want to be in this job, you have to have had,

you know, exposition or what master's degree. I believe in some many of these like non Senate confirmed appointed positions within the government. And then even if you do appoint them, some of them, as I just said, are Senate confirmed all the way down to the undersecretary level. There's no reason you know that Lindsey Graham or any of these. Mitt Romney is going to vote for these people. It's not like the Democrats aren't going to help you out.

And what if the Democrats keep control of the Senate, what Chuck Schumer is going to let some moron is twenty two years old to be like under secretary. You know, It's like there's always structural reasons, but I just don't think that's going to work out. And it gets worse than that. And I know that one of the biggest hurdles for people who wanted to be in the Trumpet

administration is that they had this ham fisted rule. Well, they implemented yes about people's tweets, and they would scroll back years in people's tweets, and a perfectly qualified person who was super maga wouldn't get a job because they sent one tweet in favor of Ted Cruz in fifteen. I have personal friends who this happened to you. That's funny, by the way, guys, And it looks like secret Service is moving through the room. I'm just keeping an eye on the feed just to make sure you see what's

going on. But it looks like there's some activity in the room. People are getting excited, so just keep that in mind. Just talking, all right, let's do another Let's

do another premium question here real quick. Before I do that, though, I do want to remind people that we will have election results later too, and the Chicago mayor's race, and this Wisconsin State Supreme Court race, which is weirdly extremely important because it could flip it's currently a four to three conservative majority, could flip the sort of partisan inclinations of the court. Huge stakes in terms of potential presidential election.

Wisconsin was the only state Supreme court that even considered Trump's you know, in sane stop the Steel Court case nonsense, huge implications in terms of abortion. As it stands, this like eighteen hundred's complete abortion ban is in effect in Wisconsin. The more liberal candidate has said she would vote with the other liberals to overturn that. So a lot of voters saying that like that is number one for them. Also huge implications in terms of just partisan control of

the state. This is a state that has been gerrymandered like crazy in favor of the Republicans. So a liberal balance court would look very skeptically at this so very high stakes there that we're going to be watching for. But let's go ahead and is Trump coming out or he's walking out? I was just telling everybody of our control, let's go ahead and switch over to the feed here, guys, this is the former president. Yes, and you can see

him walking in here. Personally, I cannot do this. I was wishing they would call him president A Yeah, yeah, that's right. Individual one, individual one. Some of the cowboy hats reading supporters and fans. There as kind of more of a rally vibe energy to it than you know, any sort of like somber legal proceeding or anything like that. The idea is, I guess he's going to give some comments and maybe he's going to take questions from the pre I don't see just looking at this setup, I

don't see how he could possibly take a questions. Where would the press be? And then it looks like he's moving. Is this the ballroom? I believe in mar Lago and he's like moving, like lovingly through the crowd taking I mean that they certainly look like they love it. I don't know if he loves them, but he loves him enough to sell him a fifty dollars T shirt with a fake Buggs with a fake mudshot. Did you guys see that? I may or may not have bought one

already for the set. Yeah, but just looking I guess he's making his way. I'm just looking at this logistically, Emily, do you agree, I'm not sure how this could possibly set up up as a press conference that's what they're billing it at this setup looks like his campaign. Yeah, this is a rally. It looks like it looks like when it does look a campaign, it does look exactly like his campaign announcement. Well, he brings a little bit more fire than he did for the last time that

we were all together. Yeah, we were so boring. The last time. So before we hear him start, what do you guys think, Is this going to be like a wild Trump off the cuff speech or is this going to be one of the tame teleprompter like stay on the script Trump speeches. I think he's in it. I think he's most animated when he's in back against the wall. So, I mean, I always think about the day. The most

animated I ever saw the man was. I interviewed him two days after the midterm elections, and it was because it was a disaster that in eighteen and he his only mission in life was to convince me and then the press later in the press conference that it was not his fault. That all right, guys, all right, so he's coming up here, let's go. Let's see how it goes to Trump. We'll see, all right, gents, let's cut to the wide and let's see what exactly the means

you guys on the other side. All right, That was the former president giving what was much more of like a campaign speech than a direct response to the charges of the day, going through all the greatest hits, going back to the beginning, Russia Gate, impeachment, Ukraine, the whole bit, and also, and this was maybe I wasn't necessarily expecting this, talking not just about the indictments from today, but going through each of the potential charges that could come against

him with regards to documents and fake elector scheme. You talked specifically about Fulton County. And by the way, disclaimer for YouTube, any nonsense that he said about the election is exactly that, So we are not endorsing any of the claims that he made in that video. But what are you guys' top line thoughts on I'm stunned at how short the speech was. It comes in in exactly twenty one minutes. It's one of the shortest speeches that

Trump is given in a lot. I've seen him give speeches at like the Easter dedication for the White House, which are longer. But number one was not spending more time going through the specifics, not talking about the indictment. Actually, I thought it was a smart move because he basically pulled back, and I thought it was a bit of a tell spending more of his time, not even on

Alvin Bragg. If you look at and somebody can go do the statistical analysis dramatically, more time talking about the documents, about the Presidential Records Act and about the Fulton County, Georgia. It might actually be an insight into his thinking as to where he faces genuine legal and political jeopardy, not actually looking at this as all that much of a threat.

One of the most important lines Philip Weigman flagging from real care politics is that he said that prosecutors wanted him to settle the case, but quote, I want no part of that now. Look, obviously we have no idea whether that is true or not. It's certainly possible. I guess that it could be true that they were trying to roll him up or get him to a plea deal. Just everybody can get a press relation roll them up on who he's the president. That's a good point. I

don't know what really happened. Who's the Davos guy. What's his name? Oh? Yeah, well up. And it's funny because you were just talking about bugs. Just so people know. They weren't that bad. I hate him in tailand they were nice not sending me to the pod. Do you guys think, Yeah, what do you guys think? What was your Yeah? It was like a good Billy Joel concert. He's playing all the hits like he was he was feeling it, like it wasn't the Trump that just kind

of stumbled out there right after that the election. I think he very much regretted taking the advice of his advisors, who a said he should announce at that point and b said that he should stick to the script and try to be uh, you know this this politician who's like plays within the rules, and he did that, and he's like, now look what they did. They're trying to throw me in jail. So you know, he's just going to say, we'll screw it. What's the point, and it

will set him up. It gives him a reason to run his campaign because now he can just say he's, you know, fighting off all of these different forces that are coming on him, which then means that he doesn't actually have to say what he was going to do with if he's elected. I almost have this thought, I'm curious what you guys think. This to me is like almost the real campaign launch of twenty twenty four. Like

his original campaign, it was such a snooze fest. We covered it all here Live, you know, we made a whole big to do out of it, and we watched it. We're like this, that's it, Like it's so disappointing. This it felt genuine for with him just watching him, you know, meandering all over the place. Chinatown is my personal favorite. We're all trying to figure out, like what is he talking about here? That is a part of a vintage Trump. His energy scene there seemed more in a fighting posture, Crystal,

What did you think overall? Yeah, I mean it is kind of an in between vibe because certainly higher energy than the campaign launch, which was almost like very somber of their but he was more or less on script, right, I mean, short spit speech. He more or less to the teleprompter with a few little ad libs here or there. So it was like, in terms of the Trump vibe, it was kind of in between. He clearly had a lot more energy than he did at the campaign launch,

and a couple things stand out to me. Number one, to your point, Sager, I'm not sure it is smart strategically for him to focus on all the range of charges, because these particular charges are the weakest of all of them and the ones that he has the most to

work with. So I'm actually a little surprised from a tactical perspective that he didn't just like laser in on these and hammer at home and get all the talking points going, and then the move is, which he has done before everything else, even though the other things may have more merit and may be more difficult to dismiss, you just lump them in the same category and say, see, it was a witch hunt with Alvin Bragg, and these are all witch hunts too, without having to get into

all the specifics of like the parah, the document, like group, and what the acronyms he's using that I don't even know obviously off the top of my head. So I was spri that tactically. I do think it's a tell that he, like you kept pointing to Emily saying this is the tip of the iceberg, he clearly sees it that way as well. He sees this as the first of probably a number of charges he's going to have to deal with, and so he is already trying to make his case about all of those charges right now

from the beginning. So I think that is noteworthy. And then in the politics of it, and Emily would love to get your thought about this again, this just makes it impossible for any other Republican contender, because this is like the campaign launch, and guess what, It's not about policy or you know, what you're going to do for your state or for the country or whatever. It's about the litany of the attacks on him that he sees is unfair and all the people that are out to

get him. How do you compete with that when that is the landscape that he is crafting, and that is going to be the landscape that the media is playing on too going into the primary elections. You absolutely don't. And I actually wonder if that's factoring into Rhonda santa decision to test the waters in a way. He's not in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, like Tim Scott, like

Mike Pompeo, like other people that are declared. Of course, he is an acting governor, but at the same time, he really has waited, I think more has with more hesitants and eluctance into those waters than anyone else. Because if the election is about Donald Trump, the only person who's going to win a Republican primary is Donald Trump.

If one of the top issues every single day is that for Republicans, the government is being weaponized to pursue a political enemy, and that political enemy is Donald Trump. Even if it's a proxy as symbol, Trump always says, it's not about me, it's about you. I'm only in the way. If that's it, he's still the one in the way. So it doesn't make any sense that you could see somebody eating at the media attention. I understand all the arguments that there are different lanes for different

Republican candidates going forward. I get it. But if this becomes the headline news over and over again, now that we have super hungry district attorney down in Atlanta, we have a special council probe on the documents. That's to Ryan's point he made earlier that was huge in the midterm elections was forcing the conversation about Trump with the documents. Democrats were very successful in making every candidate who was running everywhere talk constantly about Donald Trump, answer answer for

Donald Trump. It made the MAGA candidates talk. It was like bait for them, talk more and more and more about Donald Trump. He has raised ten million dollars since the indictment. This is a big is a lot of money. Ten million dollars since the indictment, So not only in the sort of media ecosystem. Will he eat up all of the different time and conversation. He could also do that with donors. It's also entirely possible that because he's the high profile subject of this, he gets all of

the funding money. I kept thinking about that too, you know, earlier when I was watching Joe Biden is the president and he is the most irrelevant man today in the middle of his own tenure, the press the White House. CNN is chartering her speedboat to watch this plane land,

the helicopter shots, the drones. There were hundreds of press assembled outside of Manhattan, and the President of the United States is sitting in the White House and they quote call the lid like no public events scheduled at three o'clock PM, because they're like no, It's like they're not even involved in any of this. And I just kept thinking about this. The Trump era began the day that he walked down the escalator. It will end the day that he dies. Even when he's not a candidate. He

is literally the center of gravity of politics. He was like that even the first two years before he decided he was going to run again against Biden. And when you're the center of gravity, how do you run against that. He's a bigger he's almost a larger than life figure. He's not even political, he's meticultural. Now at this point, Ron DeSantis, what is your case to Republican voters? Like?

You know, I saw Richard Hannania say this. He's like, listen, DeSantis won't win because there are not people on YouTube who consider themselves like actual QAnon preachers for Trump, who think they're going to deliver, like no one is like out there having shrines of Desanders, like he's going to del over me from wayfair pedophiles. What you're saying is

that there's an opening market. Look, I get you're right doing you know who benefits you benefits the most to be out to have Joe Biden out of the news, Joe bid Of course, that's the craziness of it, all right, that's the craziness. And that's what I was thinking about, is listen, whether they're right or not. And I think they're very foolish and they're forgetting history to be like we want Donald Trump to be the nominee. That is what Democrats think. They want Donald Trump to be the nominee.

They are more fearful of Ron DeSantis as a contender. The best thing for Joe Biden that could possibly happen is for Trump and the Trump circus to be dominating in the news and Biden to just be laying back and not saying anything. So you have really like a full service economy here. The corporate media on the liberal side is going to be interested in leaning into this, and I mean in a sense like we're doing that.

I can't blame them, because it is historic to have a former president who is being indicted on this charge and probably a range of other charges as well. They're going to be leaning into it and making Trump the center of their iire conservative media is going to whether they want to or not, They're going to have to do the same thing on the other side and focus a lot on these and rebutting these charges, and that's

going to be the center of gravity there. All of the oxygen in the political ecosystem is going to be taken up once again by Donald Trump. By the way, Brandon Johnson just went up, Wow and very interesting. Yes, guys, left wing, most left wing mayorson child Washington. That's crazy. So just to everybody who's watching the stream and who

is listening, tomorrow when all this is going down. We are actively monitoring the Chicago mayoral results and the Wisconsin Supreme don't you give us Ryan a little bit of an update on give us a lay of the land in the Chicago rights for people I have been following this and are like, I don't live in Chicago, why

should I care. It's a microcosm of our tough on crime and defund the police debate that we've been having since twenty twenty, basically with Democrats being told that you know everybody, you know that that anybody who ever wore defund the Police t shirt has to be driven out of politics forever. Speaking of thinking of Wisconsin, Yeah, yeah, exactly. And Mendel Barnes almost won that race that Democrats gave up on him on. So Brandon Johnson middle school teacher

kind of left left. The organizer for the for the teachers' unions had the support of called it's called United Work, the United Working Families, which is an affiliate of Working Families Party, which has been organizing in Chicago for several cycles now, and kind of taking what was a little rump resistance to Rama Manuel and growing it into a real kind of Democratic Socialist base on the city Council, and this was their first candidate that they're running at

the mayoral level in November, or most first serious one in November. He was at like three percent and he propelled himself into the runoff into the top two against Paul Vallas. He was outspent two to one. Wow, And so there was a lot of pestimism going in that the money that came and the organizing from the police

union would be enough to swamp him. But it looks like right now he's up by eleven hundred votes, and they expect that he'll win the mail in ballots by at least ten thousand, and there's like almost what was that margin of that look like a couple of points, So right now he's up a point, but he would end up winning by maybe three or four points if

the projections. If the projections hold. Wassman was saying that Ballast needs a miracle at this point, and it does seem to be a very clear ideological divide between the two of them, and Vallis actually came in first in the initial runoff that knocked Lori Lightfoot, who was the incumbent mayor out, so you know, it looked like he had a strong hand to play here going in as well. But yeah, he's backed by a lot of the more sort of like conservative apparatus in the city and certainly

back by the police union as well. Brandon Johnson was accusing him of being like sort of like a closet

Trump supporter kind of thing. It was a very clear ideological divide between these you can't fascinate and the Sanders wings big problem has always been working class black voters, and so this is that kind of the first time that this coalition since like Harold Washington in the eighties in Chicago, really pulled together working class black voters and a progressive movement that is coded sometimes fairly sometimes unfairly

as kind of white dominated. Yeah, and that force coming together is what is needed if you're going to take if you're going to become dominant in democratic primaries, and that had eluded the left in a lot of these races, and you saw South Carolina break the back of the Sanders campaign in twenty twenty, for instance. So if they do pull this together, that it's a model, and whether

it can be repeated, we'll see. I was just said, I think you can sort of make it Trump connection here as as much of our stretch as it may seem, and that when Lori Lightfoot was toppled, it was this. Republicans sort of see in this a win for the tough on crime Republican line, the the you know, centrist democrat, the valance. You know, this is the voice, the voices of reason and centrism are winning out because crime has escalated in ways that your average Chicagoan feels threatened by.

And I think they're probably making a well, I know they're making a similar argument in Wisconsin, which is another race we're paying really close attention to. But abortion is playing into that race as well. It's not playing in Chicago, but it is playing in Wisconsin in the way that it played out in some midterm competitions. And I just think it's really important for people on the right who look around the country and see what does look like

just urban decay. I mean, we're here in Washington, d C. It's a city that has plenty of problems, and that's been sort of front you know, front page news for a couple of weeks in the way that Congress has handled it. But Republicans think that means people are going to gravitate in one direction. Yes, that people are going

to reject socialism. They're going to reject radical leftism. You know, Donald Trump was talking about hardcore Democrats and looney leftists, looney liberals or whatever, because they're even the Democratic Party has real problems and Democratic socialists have real problems in terms of governance in certain places. That is not automatic. It's not going to be a reflex. There's nothing given that these cities are just going to swing right because of all of that. And I think Chicago could be

a really big indication tonight. I'm thinking of a multiple things. So on the one hand, I was just looking at a population map the other day. Here I can go ahead and pull it up, and basically what it showed is that you had California and the state of New York lose a lot of population. That's what got the headlines.

But the bigger story was that every major urban city across the country, save for cities in Texas, Arizona, and even in Florida, many people were leading Miami Dade County for you know, Tampa or other places which we're had more affordable housing. So at a certain point, you might think, well, okay, well the people who are staying in the cities clearly are not leaving. You know, by definition, anybody who is on the cusp of hates it so much that they

might vote differently is just going to leave. A lot of people aren't just going to stay. So, if anything, it could lead to a situation where people who are committed to the project, to the city life and to who want that and align or at least aren't as perturbed as many others are obviously willing to vote within those policies, and then people who don't like it are just going to leave. So you might even have what

even more geographic polarization, if that's even possible. Significant net migrations happen between urban and not even rural areas, but really more suburban and ex urban. That probably is only going to continue now as a result of that, But coincidentally, actually think it probably makes it easier for leftists to win in major cities if that's going to be the case. Does all that make sense? Yeah? It does. I mean you also there are a lot of people who can't leave, right, Oh,

look for I think you should leave. No, I'm just saying leading yeah, and certainly in the parts of Chicago that have been just beset by a scourge of gun violence, you have had massive populations, lot huge, but you also have a lot of people who you know, can't afford to leave and have no choice but to stay and to to try to, you know, figure out the best

way forward. You know. One of the things Ryan that I'll be watching for is the media's takeaway on if Brandon Johnson does prevail, Because anytime, like in Eric Adams wins, it's like seen as a referendum on this is it's the moderates time and the tough on crime eras here and whatever, and whenever a leftist wins, it's like, yeah, it's a fluke doesn't mean anything, right, Like, oh, maybe both are in these neighborhoods in Chicago that are actually

experienced experiencing extreme levels of violence, wants something other than just incarceration as as a response to that, Like the media could blore that as a possibility if Johnson wins, Yeah, they're definitely not going to take it as like, oh, there's a national backlash against Joe Biden moderate adventure. There's no way. Whereas when when Eric Adams wins, it's like, oh,

this means everything for the country, where you know. I think probably the intelligent thing to do is to look at the specifics of the races, the specifics of the candidates, the specifics of the coalitions that you were talking about that have been built up over a long period of time, and view it through like a unique regional lens, rather than trying to paint some broad national picture based on

one mayoral race result would be my suggestion. I also really think that Republicans see their hope right now as this backlash in general, and I think that's why Trump framed his speech the way he did. To some extent,

that's his only option. But there's this idea that the overreach and what feels like abnormality and unprecedented decisions, that's what can tap into your voter that you need to animate, get out and actually vote Republican and independent who may go back and forth, makes them feel like the ground is shaking under their feet, make them feel uncomfortable, And I just don't think that translates into wins for centrists and for Republicans as easily as people think it does.

I think that's what Trump is obviously to the point that was raised here about how Donald Trump is trying to tie this into the broader legal fights that he's facing. I think that's very deliberate. It's very deliberate because he's tapping into what voters feel as being like maybe unsettled or new abnormal in all of those different ways, including with crime. But it doesn't automatically translate. There's no guarantee.

We've got one of our guests standing by, but why don't you guys keep an eye on these results too, and we'll get everybody updated because Wisconsin polls have closed as well, so we should be getting some results on. We will absolutely get them. So I believe we have our guest standing by control room, we can go and have there. He is national security lawyer Bradley Moss. Welcome back to the show. Brad. It's good to see you. Good to see how you guys doing doing good? How

about you? Well, can't complain it's been an interesting day. Yes, I know this is your super Bowl, Brad, Yeah, the classified documents case. That'll be that's true. That's true, that was your super Bowl. Although you know we've got a significant amount of that discussion in the speech as well, Brad, So, the last time that you were on our show, one of the things that we wanted to discuss was about the potential indictment. All that was based on leaks. We're

specifically focusing on the novel theory of the case. As you said, well, that's why novel things are novel. They will get tried in court. Now that you've had the chance to both read the indictment and to read the statement of facts, what's your major takeaway from this case? And I know that you've always found it defense or you found it defensible originally, do you still stand by that? What do you think? What do you think about it? Sure, I think it's still defensible. I do view this as

a very bold and risky move by Alvin Bragg. This is a very clear misdemeter case. If that's all he is bringing, I would have no concerns. I think Trump would be toast. The elevation of this to a felony is based on two basic issues. One is that campaign finance issue, which obviously is that novel theory. The idea to tying it in without actually charging a state election crime because they can't get to be preampted by federal law.

But referencing that for a basis of elevating it to a felony, that's going to be a subject of pre trial motions. We don't know how that'll go. That'll be a fascinating legal nerd moment. The rest of us, every everybody else will just be waiting to see what happens. But the backup Alvin Braggers got here is these referencing state tax crimes as well. That could be interesting, That could salvage things if for any reason the election crime

provisions go down and residuces this to a misdemeanor. But remember a misdemeter is still a crime. They're still a crime here either way. Can you explain that tax piece, because I, frankly, as a non lawyer, am a little confused because in the statement of facts, clearly he you know, references that this was used and you know in part to have to engage in tax broad There are some details that are given in the statement of facts with

regard to that. I read through it earlier in terms of how the payments were structured so that Michael Cohen could recognize it in a certain way on his tax statements, but it didn't seem that that was the piece that he was using to elevate this to a felony charge. So does he have to lay that out now or can they then in the trial make that case. How

does this all work out? Sure? So the next step that the Trump team is going to take, and they're going to take this anyways for a number of reasons, is they're going to ask for a bill of particulars. They're going to ask for more detail beyond the basics that were in this indictment, and there was limits to what Alvin Bragg was legally required to do right now and what they could basically wait for the Trump team

to make them do more. So that be, you know, the Trump people file for a bill of particular So try to get a nailed down Alvin Bragg on what the specific state laws are at issue that he's going to be relying upon to elevate it to a felony and how that relates to the statement of facts or offense whatever they want to call it in this case. At this moment, I don't think that Alvin Brag is going to have to provide as much detail as the

Trump team would like. A lot of this will ultimately come down to if this gets the trials, that's where he'll have to lay it all out. But a lot of it's also going to come down to discovery. Alvin Bragg's got sixty five days to basically turn over everything he's got to the Trump team so they can start deciding whether or not they're going to go with pretrial motions to you know, to try to dismiss as a matter of law, or try to get reduced down to

a misdemeanor, any number of issues. That's where a lot of the details, a lot of the information will be outlined. That's what the Trump team is waiting to see. Got it? So, Brad, we had some of our premium subs. They submitted some questions that we thought were best for a lawyer. One of them is what would happen today if Trump had pled guilty? He actually intimated during his speech that prosecutors had wanted to strike a deal a What did you

make of that? Do you think that was just trumping Trump? Do you think that was legitimate and be Actually that is a good question, like what does happen or what would a plea for the agreement even look like? Would he plead to a misdemeanor, like would that some settlement type of b what do you think? Yeah, I have no doubt that the DA's office probably did offer something to Trump's team, some form of misdemeanor that Trump would have to allocut to a certain number of charges would

be you know, probation if anything. If this is a misdemeanor. In the end, even if it's a felony, jail time isn't really guaranteed, let alone likely for Donald Trump given the circumstances, given his lack of a criminal history, at least so far. So if he had pled guilty today,

he would still been released, probably un bond. If anything, there would be a pre sentencing report, there'd be any number of details of both sides would get to submit briefs outlining what punishment they believe would be required under the New York state guidelines, and that would ultimately go to the judge at a sentencing hearing. But he wouldn't

have been going to jail today. It's not that kind of kick, got it, Brett Brad Like you talk about the New York State election law reference that Alvin Bragg made you do, that entirely clear whether he's relying on New York state election law or the federal election law. Either way, here's and this is where there's going to be these pretrial motions which are going to get kind of interesting to legal nerds I don't know about for

anybody else. There's going to be a pretrial motion by the Trump team claiming that whatever election law Alvin Bragg is relying upon, that it's been preempted, that he can't rely on state election law, for example, because the federal election laws preempt any state election laws that would apply to a federal candidate. Congress didn't want federal candidates for Senate, Congress or for the presidency to have to worry about fifty state laws and the federal election law, so that

would get preempted. So that that's going to be interesting to see exactly what Alvin Bragg is relying upon here, and if he's going for the federal one, there's going to be the obvious problem of well, you haven't charged it, and that's not within your jurisdiction. How can you elevate the charge based on a federal crime, which is the purview of DJ That's where over the next two to three months, says more details come out as the bill of particulars gets filed, I think we'll get a better

sense of the nature of his case. These are things that Alfa Bradstein no doubt has already gained planned out. They've got legal memost prepared of how they would respond. Their briefs are probably pre written. For the most part. They know what they're going to argue. They just don't know what the judge will decide. Bradley, in your view,

are there any risks to precedent here? Mile boss Tim Connie wrote in The Washington Examiner earlier that it's sort of ridiculous to suggest every expense that helps a campaign is then classified as a campaign expense. Although there's obviously other things going on here. That said, there is a kind of big question looming over it. Does this you know, Republicans are saying this is ushered in the Banana Republic

era in American politics. Earlier you said there is a question going for misdemeanor to fellony, sort of converting that. Jonathan Chait wrote skeptically about that as well. Do you think there are any risks to setting bad precedents here or do you see this as a more narrow case. I view it as a narrow case, and I'll here's why. I'll say that there is a clear mysdemere case here

because he used personal funds. This isn't like what Hillary Clinton did where her campaign reimbursed the law firm that had paid for the subcontractor to do the steel dot the thing that was campaign funds to be nobody to indict. It's a campaign. It shut down whatever corporate entity is all that's left of it. This was Donald Trump, from the Donald Trump Trust, cutting checks to Michael Cohen to reimburse him on the he locks that he took out

to payoff Stormy Daniels. And it was the documentation outlining the payment to Michael Cohen was done through business records. That's how he got caught up in this particular criminal provision. So that's very distinctive and very trumpious, trump yasque like. That is distinguishable from what say Hillary Clinton would do,

or a Barack Obama and his campaign would do. There wouldn't be there's no Obama organization to have run that through and a trust to have run that to pay off on a hush money deal the way that Donald Trump did. That's what I think makes this a very narrow case in that regard. I don't see that if this failed, and or if this goes forward either way, I don't see this having ramifications for much of anybody else.

Got it. So, if the Trump campaign had paid Stormy Daniels with campaign money, would he be in the clear here? He personally might have. It depended on how it was documented by the campaign and where you know what they wrote down in FBC disclosures, But that's an issue of federal campaign laws, and that would be a problem for the lawyers and for the officials in the campaign who

handled that. The extent to which Donald Trump personally would have been criminally reliable would have been a far hazier issue. But they didn't want the campaign handling it because they knew they would have to disclose all that to the FEC. He didn't want this disclosed to anybody. He was concealing it. And that's what this whole indictment and the same of the defense outlined. This was a two year conspiracy to

kill these stories true or not. And I don't know to you who whether or not these stories with Kara McDougall and Stormy Daniels were true. And then to cover up the concealment of them through these shady reimbursed I mean, I think we have a pretty good sense. We have another question from we well know, all right, that's not what's on trial. So we have another question from one of our premium subscribers. Brian McAfee asked about the statute

of limitation. He says, can anyone break down the statute of limitations in this case? Because this was another piece where there was they had to kind of do some legal maneuvering to make it so that they still had time to charge this case. Yeah. So the problem for Donald Trump here is he left the state of New York. He left first and twenty seventeen to become the president to live in DC, and then after twenty seventeen, right after twenty twenty when he lost the election, he moved

to Florida. He left the state, and under New York state law, the moment he left to permanently reside somewhere else, the statue limitations was told it continued on and so it was put on hold that spatial limitations. That's why it hasn't lapsed in this case. That's why it continued forward and That's why that issue if he brings it up in tree trial motions, but I'm sure he will,

that's why that will fail. And finally, this is as the President himself discussed or former president himself discussed in his speech tonight, this is one case of potentially a number where Trump could face charges. You've got the documents issue, You've got the Fulton County grand jury and fake elector scheme. You've got the Special Council looking into a variety of misdeeds here in Washington. What do you think is the

sort of most serious charges that he could face? Which case do you think is the most potentially solid here moving forward? The case that I have been waiting for since August, the document case. Now, is this just your personal bias speaking Bradley, totally not my personal bias, But no, that is the one that I think is the most

clear cut and simplest one. And here's why the January sixth one is going to get tied up in all kinds of issues of the Office of the President trying to interact with state officials and officials with the DJ trying to push what is what he would argue is a lawful government operation. It would have run into issues of what happened on January sixth in terms of his commentary with First Amendment prompts. There's a number of issues

that would get tied up with that one. The Georgia case. Again, it's all tied up in a couple of phone calls. I don't know the full universe what Fanny Willison has got. I'm sure it's going to be very interesting when we see it all, but that has some convoluted aspects where it's a lot more of an issue for the fake electors and Rudy Gileani for what he said before the legislature than I think it is for Donald Trump. I think he's still just nice to think it's a shadier case.

The documents are clear. They went tomorrow lago. They were still classified, they still had the markings, and as far as we can tell now from what we're getting from even that sealed ruling that got leaked out regarding Evan Corcoran, he was ordering his lawyers to help him conceal where the documents were to avoid the subpoena at ballgame. As far as I'm sor right, yeah, I mean that's it fits with almost every legal analysis that I've seen yet

involving all three cases. So, Brad, we always appreciate talking to you. We appreciate your view. Thank you for joining us and for staying late. We appreciate it very much. Not a problem, I'm going absolutely okay. So I mean, look, it seems to be basically Chrystal clear at this point, pun intended. I guess every major legal analyst that we've seen right and left as Brad. You know, Brad has always been somebody who wants to prosecute Trump. He's been

a big defender of any of these cases. All of them are like, yeah, this one it's a little weak or at the very least. You know, he's saying open and shot on misdemeanor. He's like, we'll see how it goes. You know. What he was saying about Fulton County is something I've heard before, but all of them always come back to. But the documents one is the real problem.

Everyone right and left Trump only himself. You know, he obviously addressed that during his rally, talking about NARA, the National Records Act, and the Presidential Records Act in his own personal authority. It really does the problem also for him, is it doesn't even come down to his possession of the documents themselves, which would not have been a crime. It all comes down to the obstruction charge. That is the one that separates him from all of these other

public officials. That said, who knows, I mean politically, it still would be damaging for Biden or for the DOJ to go after join the sitting president himself has also had classified documents. What did you guys take away from Brad's analysis, Yeah, on his misdemeanor point. Misdemeanor is also tough for the prosecutors because there's this two year of statute limitation, whereas the felony allows you to go to five years and then lets you pull in the misdemeanors

as a result. So they're relying then completely on this fellow. They need the felony for that statue limit, and they'll say, well, he moves to Florida, so actually doesn't count, and so we can extend it as long as we want. But you can litigate that and they could lose that. Yes, that actually answers the premium subscriber question we got from Brian McAfee on can anyone break down the statute of limitations in this case, the two to five year that's

why the felony is absolutely key. And that's where Trump pointed out in his speech. You know, everyone, quote, including rhinos and hardcore Democrats see this case as a weak one. Yea, And yeah, that's true. I mean, basically, you don't see any full throated defenses of this particular case being just a knockout, like you're just knocking this one out of

the ballpark. And I think that's important because, as we talked about earlier, I do think Trump benefits in that murkiness that when that he's able to pitch this as black and white, and that's why he latched onto that to the extent that he did in his speech, I think. But yeah, I mean that documents case, that's the big one. Well, and I could be wrong, but I think that's the case that Trump talked the most about in his speech

tonight as well. I mean, he certainly went into some detail about why he felt he had the authority and what a bunch of nonsense it was. And actually Joe Biden did the same thing, only worse than They're in Chinatown or whatever. It seems to me like he also may feel that that's the case where he is in the greatest jeopardy because it also seems that they kind of get the goods on this one. I mean, they

subpoened all the surveillance footage. There seems to be somebody on the inside who was very close to Trump, perhaps in his Secret Service detail, even who has been informing on him or one of his lawyers. It just recently was reported, I believe, by the Washington Post that they had additional evidence that seemed to indicate even after he had certified. Oh, yes, of course, we gave him up, that he personally was like sifting through these files and

moving documents around. So could be that that one on the obstruction piece is the most clear cut legally speaking. But Ryan, I do wonder about, you know, the politics on the legal case. Maybe one thing, the politics of it did become a lot less clear when it was revealed that Joe Biden also had classified diety. Oh and Mike Pence had classified documents. And then everyone goes, Okay, I guess everybody had classified documents, So what the hell

is going on here? Yeah, there's a there's a sense among some people that there's never a price to pay for fighting no matter what the odds, you should always you know, take your fight, you know, to your to your opposition, and that they're this idea that you have that there's capital that you can gain and lose is not It's not really based in reality. But I think

they're wrong. And I think if they spend capital on this Manhattan case and it gets dismissed, let's say, or it just fizzles, then then I think it does draw some energy away from stronger cases that they have, like the one you're talking about. So not only would they be prosecuting a document's case, which is tricky because the current sitting president has his own document document issues nowhere near as bad as Trump's. Like you said, he was

just flagrantly committing crimes the entire time. But if it's if you have that confusion coupled with a failed prosecution in Manhattan and whatever happens in folding it, it allows him to build a narrative that there's a witch hunt. One thing that I did wonder though, as well, is I know, obviously you know they'll all claim, oh, we're not considering the politics of it whatsoever, We're just evenly applying the facts in the law, and of course that's

total nonsense. And you know, the DOJ folks are these sort of like nervous nelly, like naturally personally conservative types, where I think they were probably deeply worried about what it might do to the country to charge Trump and are you going to have violent clashes and are you gonna have riots industry, like how is this all going

to unfold? And you know, we saw some a little bit of protesters getting in each other's faces today, but it's certainly wasn't like another January sixth, right, So I wonder, on the other hand, if you don't have them feel like they have a little bit of cover now and feel a little bit less nervous about bringing whatever cases and whatever charges they have and you know, seeing what sticks, because they'll be less fearful of like, oh, this is

just literally going to rip the country into very very possible. So we've got our other guests standing by. Josh Hammer. He's the opinion editor over at Newsweek. There he is. He's joining us now. Josh, I know that you watch the speech and you've also you know, for the audience. He's also got a legal background so can speak to a lot of that as well. It's like what we'd like to focus on here, Josh. At this point, I'm assuming you've read the indictment, the statement of facts and

all that. What do you make of the case on its face against Trump? Well, great to be with you, guys. I mean, legally speaking, the indictment today, the statement of facts when I actually read it, even weaker than I expect that to be, and I had pretty shockingly low expectations for how weak it would be. I mean, we do not know, literally, we do not know at this point what the alleged enhancement crime is that will purportedly take this from misdemeanor to felony. We literally don't know.

I mean, you know. The scuttle but for the past few days has been that Alvin brad was going to try to invoke federal US campaign finance law. Maybe that's the case. I mean, in Alvin Bragg's posting Diamian press conference, he also alluded kind of confusingly to New York state law. So the whole thing is totally muddled. I mean, I mean, there's jurisdictional issues, there's statute limitations issues. It's really quite

farcical on its face. I think we have a question here that you maybe well positioned away in on from women of our premium subscribers is from Grace Gene. Grace says, are there other New York crimes that depend on breaking

other laws? You discuss how the felony upgrade of Trump's charges depend on proving the crimes were committed in the further ins er covering up of other crimes, but in this case may have been federal though you're saying, Josh, it's not actually clear not state laws that were broken. Is there any precedent in statute or common law for other state laws being broken that depend on other crimes that may be based in federal law. I mean nothing that I can remember for my first year of criminal

law course at the University Chicago Law School. I'll put see that way. I mean, you know, if I were to go into like Lexis and Nexus or Westlawn like literally type in certain search terms, maybe I could pull up some rogue prosecutors, some rogue judge out in kind of the middle of the country who did something crazy twenty or thirty years ago. But I mean to say that this is non normal, I think would be understating it.

I mean, Alvin Bragg is a county district attorney. He is a partisan county district attorney who if he is actually trying to reach for federal campaign finance laws, again holding aside the glaring and obvious statute of limitations issue here, he just quite simply has no jurisdiction to do so. And in fact, US prosecutors have looked into possibly trying to prosecute Trump for alleged violation of those federal campaign finance laws and they have passed on the case. So,

I mean, maybe there's some precedent. He deepened the leads of legal research Nerdery, But this is not a not a common thing, Josh on that question, this is just basic process stuff. What can people expect to happen next for Donald Trump? There's a lot of speculation, you know, anything can happen. There's already been speculation about what a possible sentence would look like, et cetera, et cetera. What do you think people should be looking out for in

the days and weeks ahead. So, one thing that I thought was interesting about the speech in mar A Lago tonight, it was a very tight controlled speech. I mean, to be totally blunt. I actually thought it was somewhat boring, and I think that was probably I thought that was probably intentional. Right, I'm sure his lawyers were saying be boring. I guess on the one hand, that's okay. On the other hand, I thought politically as somewhat of a missed opportunity.

But clearly, and the reason I raised that, Emily is because clearly his lawyers are already in his ear. So it'll be interesting just as a matter of kind of the truth social social media stuff, to see like whether the tone actually comes down a little bit. As far as the courtroom stuff, I mean, you're gonna you're probably gonna see a lot of cross motions filed, a lot

of kind of lower profile stuff. Trump's team, quite possible will make a motion to kind of move venue from Manhattan at least to get this thing to Staten Island, which is the only New York City borough that is even remotely politically heterodots where he might get anything remotely approximating a fair jury. So I expect some kind of motions on both sides to kind of take up a

lot of the court's time. But as far as possibly getting to a jury, if that it really is, where as ultimately heads that would be many many months down

the line, probably late summer or early fall. I think I want to ask you, Josh, the question that I asked our last guest, which is, of all the various legal jeopardy, not just this these particular charges, but you know, Fulton County and the document situation in January sixth and fake electors, which do you think is the most difficult case for Trump and which do you think that he

faces the greatest legal jeopardy. Well, to be honest with you, I don't think any of these cases are particularly serious on the pure legal merits. I really don't mean I mean the January sixth and Diamond, which I assume is going to happen at this point. I mean, there's been a lot of build up, you know, the January sixth

Kangaroo Court kind of issues recommendation. Merrick Garland, from my perspective, has been kind of sicking the prosecutorial APPARATUSUS on conservatives for a while now, So I expect him to kind of go forward with something January six related. But there's a very direct First Amendment case law that really protects what Trump said at the Ellipses that day, So I

don't view that as particularly legally serious. The classified document stuff, to me, is clearly statutorily protected under relevant statute, and it's also constitutionally protected under the basic Commander in Chief Article two progative because he was the sitting president of the United States. And also the fact that Joe Biden has his own classified document retention issues, I think mitigates the possible effectiveness of that charge on Trump. So that

kind of leaves us with Georgia. That kind of leaves us with the whole infamous Brad Rathensburger phone call as possibly the least legally dubious. And I'm phraising myself carefully here. I'm not saying it's serious, the least legally dubious. Yeah, it's an interesting perspective. I haven't heard that one yet. Here's an interesting one from one of our premium subs which he might be able to answer from. Brian McAfee says,

who is the victim here? You know, I have to remember from my law school days that who is the victim? And did Trump have men'sray? I'm assuming I said that correct. I'm fairly sure I was taught a mens rea was required for a criminal charge unless it has a strict liability crime. I am struggling, struggling to find Trump's guilty mind here to prosecute. First of all, explain what the hell he's saying about. Translates to the question all right, sure, so yeah, So a criminal law, one on one, there

are two components for a crime. There is the actus rays, which is the Latin term for the literal kind of actual act, the actual conduct. And then this questionnare is correct, you also need the relevant men's rea, which is kind of the subjective mindset. So I am not barred in New York. I'm barred in Texas. So I can't necessarily speak with with any kind of great expertise for the

relevant underlying New York statutory law. But I would imagine and that the actual misdemeanor here, the falsification of business records, probably has a strict liability attached to it, which, to kind of break down the league leads means that you don't actually necessarily have to have a certain kind of subjective mindset that if you do it, you do it. But the men's ray is crucial here because when we get into the possible federal campaign finance law stuff that

makes all the difference in the world. So Alvin Bragg's theory of the case, if it actually does involve federal campaign finance law, is that Donald Trump purposely and deliberately falsified as business records in order in order for the subjective intent to strictly benefit his twenty sixteen presidential campaign.

The obvious problem for Alvin Bragg's theory of the case is that his purported star witness, the convicted lawyer Michael Cohen, has literally testified that Donald Trump directed him to make the payment to save Trump's family from embarrassment, i e. It was not necessarily to benefit of twenty sixteen campaigns. So if you take Michael Cohen's own word, then the men's ray of fails at least on the federal campaign

finance screends. Got it. Josh has actually been very, very helpful, So we appreciate you joining us tonight on breaking some of this down answering some of those questions. So appreciate it. Man, Thank you. Thanks jash Any Signs. So we have a huge call here from Dave Wasserman. How do we decide to say her name? Well, I don't think we did. Has defeated Daniel Kelly for Wisconsin Supreme Court. Wow. The result flipping the ideological control of the court from conservative

to liberal. A huge victory for the pro host pro choice side. So that's the call there from Dave Wasserman. Obviously we'll wait for the ap but that's usually as as good as it gets for the early one, and it's early initial reactions. Well, that's that's the early call. And when you're looking at these numbers, we see seventy one percent votes are in from Walkersha County, That's where

I'm from. Kelly got fifty nine percent of those seventy one percent that are in, and Potassowitz has forty one percent, forty one percent in Wakansha County. Now, part of that is millennials changing voting. Talk about those numbers, he would want something like mid sixties. Can we back up area right before the election results? Yeah? Explain why this is important? Why should anyone care about the Wisconsin's bere important? Well, Chrystlin Ryan might have additional thoughts on this, but I

will say I think it is correct. Both the left and the right. You'll notice have cast this framed this as a referendum on Scott Walker's era that he ushered into in Wisconsin. Wisconsin has been on a seesaw for the past decade plus. I was in high school when the Act ten drama was going down and had teachers who made up excuses to get out of class and go protest, and it was it was new for Wisconsin, which is a historically working class, very often much of

the royal parts of the state all voted Democrat. You know that district in northern Wisconsin. David Obi had it for forty years and it flipped in twenty ten with Sean Duffy in the Tea party. Years Wisconsin has been on the seesaw, going back and forth. Scott Walker lost, and it's you know who's going to win based on turnout. Who's animated based on turnout. And that's why when Wassherman says this is a big win for the pro choice side,

that's because they animated voters on this abortion issue. They animated They successfully got more pro choice voters out than they did pro life voters in a state that was seen in the corporate media as being this beacon of the conservative movement. The conservative movement had taken over Wisconsin and it just was never true. It was never true. And all of these different Act ten issues, abortion issues, jerrymandering issues are in front of the Wisconsin Supreme Court

and we'll be decided by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. So this is huge, go ahead, right, And so far abortion rights have been on the ballot in what Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, now Wisconsin, and every time abortion rights voters have come out and upheld them. Interesting, so that works, how about that? Yeah? So, like Crystal said, there's this eighteen forty law on the books and it's working its way through the courts right now. But while it is, abortion is not happening in Wisconsin

that this will change that. Like this this is a way that people can vote and change their material lives. So it's and then there's the jerry mannering, which is huge, and then there's also the twenty twenty four lives. Sure to say, I think that one is also I mentioned guys can throw up C two here please. We have a Milwaukee Journal Central Sentinel piece where they actually lay it out quite well. The interesting thing to note here is that there is a four to three majority on

the Court for the conservatives. Now that he has lost, and I'm not even trying to Janet now that Janet Janet, it's not a disrespect I swear to go, you know. So now that she has won, she is now won a ten year term on the court, which means that the next race on the Court is not until twenty

twenty five. So we have a two year period here where four to three liberal majority will stand at a time when abortion is directly before the Supreme Court, voting is before the Supreme Court on jerrymandering, and critically, all of the stop the Steel efforts were happening in the Wisconsin state legislature during the twenty twenty election, which might have been challenged if there were any Republican victories in the state legislature that might have led to attempts to

decertify or have a different interpretation of electoral college law. All of that will now be before a liberal court in a direct flip on the issue. So people forget that Trump's challenge in twenty twenty was rejected four to three by the Wisconsin the exact court. Yes, if he had won that that changes everything. It could have been Democrats, Democrats were able to say, it's been seen by fifty judges and all fifty have thrown it out. Get out

of here with your nonsense. If they had won in Wisconsin, all bets are off. And by the way, my understanding is the one conservative who sided with the liberals on that it wasn't on really the merits of the case. It was on some procedural standing issue, and so there was a lot of there was very deep concern that if you end up with this concern majority, that next time around they may not go the way that they

did this time. So that was certainly incredibly important. I just want to underscore the abortion piece, though, because I do think this was central, and you know, anecdotal reporting from the ground is that every voter was basically like, I'm here because of abortion. I'm here because of abortion because it is super real and it's super tangible and

it's you know, super like present in people's lives. Right now, this law is currently in effect, it is whinding its way through the courts, as Ryan said, and now, just to select Janet was quite explicit. I mean, you know, we're used to this game that like Supreme Court justices play, Oh, I'm just I'm gonna you know, I don't want to opine on cases that. No, she was pretty clear, like,

I do not think this is appropriate. Some eighteen forties law is certainly women couldn't even vote, then certainly we shouldn't be abiding by that law. So she was very clear about how she would vote on it, and I do think that was probably the dominant an issue. To speak to Emley's point about the political dynamics in the state, voters have more often than not in statewide races elected Democrats,

but at the legislative level it is wildly different. Republicans have so much power within the state legislature because of this post twenty ten Jerrymander and I know we can talk about this near eyes glaze over, but they only need to win like forty percent of the vote in order to win majority in the state legislature. So you have a situation where a party that has lost statewide repeatedly and lost the popular vote repeatedly still has all

of this power in the state. And that's one of the other issues that now Justice select Janet has talked openly about how she does not think that that is appropriate and would take a hard look at these lines that have been drawn, so huge, huge stakes here in terms of reproductive rights, huge stakes in terms of jerrymandering, and of course from a national perspective, certainly huge stakes

for future Stop the Steel election. The congressional delegation of eight is six Republicans and two Democrats like that alone. It's in a fifty to fifty state, and they have borderline supermajorities right of Republicans in the state legislature. Well, and this is where I would say Wisconsin Republicans have gotten way too comfortable. I made the same argument in twenty eight twenty oply, So I want to say, you know,

it is absolutely important to look at Wisconsin. And I'm not saying that's just because in from wis guns and as a really good test laboratory for the country at large, it actually has It has urban centers, it has rural areas, It has pretty robust exurban and suburban areas. And this is a state that had a really big organizing history, that has a history of socialism, Bob Lafal and all

of those things. Because it came out of the early labor movement, and because it came out of that period where where labor had a lot more power where rural areas were very different culturally. And so when when you look at what's happened in the state of Wisconsin, where you have a lot of people, I mean, Bernie Sanders trounced Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin trounced her. Donald Trump draws big rally crowds. He's always had a close race in Wisconsin.

And that's the country. I mean, really, Wisconsin is the country. And when you look at an issue where you have Republicans running on crime, this you can dry. You can draw a direct line from you know, let's just stay from you can go from Kenosha to Chicago. Just take that short drive from Kenosha to Chicago. Republicans in Wisconsin

were running on crime. They tried to cast Justice select Janet as being soft on crime, which they thought in this climate where like carjackings are just up astronomically in Milwaukee, that that would do it. That this is how they win, this is their this is their roadmap. And instead, you know, Chicago looks like you're going to have the most left wing mayor since the eighties. I mean, it's just it's

not what Republicans think it is. Let me throw let me throw one more wrench into this because the question of super majority was brought up, and there's actually a state Senate special election that is also going on which will determine whether or not Republicans have a supermajority. And this also connects to the state Supreme Court seat that we have been discussing, because some of them have already openly been saying that if they get that super majority,

they're going to impeach Justice Janet right away. So they're talking about it already like if we get that two thirds, we're coming for her, even before you know she had even won the election. So it is high stakes all of these things and quite noteworthy. But I do think one of the things that was most telling to me was the fact that Janet was running very aggressively on

here's what I'm going to do. I'm not going to let this abortion law anti abortion law go into effect, and Dan Kelly, the conservative candidate, was more like, ah, well, i'll talk about that when we get to it. He took more of the typical line, which shows you that he was much less comfortab we talking about the issue. Doctor Os looks that the Republican is up by about one hundred votes, okay in that special election. Well, how many more votes to be cast? Eighty six percent in

sixty three thirty? Close? Wow, I will say, some real breaking news coming from my iPad right now from my mom. Crystal is right. She is right. She is right about the gerimandering issue as well. There you go, thank you. Missing people hate that their vote doesn't count, and we know that in DC is people who go out and vote just for fun. Like it doesn't exactly that reason. Okay, any other final thoughts here that we want to wrap up. Maybe on Chicago. I know that we still don't have

the exact cut there, but Wisconsin. Obviously, the fact that we were able to even make a call here tonight on the stream is actually pretty incredible. Yeah. Should we end the stream by making fun of CNN? I think that'd be a good something. Everybody here at the table, everybody out there watching this live. I alluded to this before, I just could not believe it. Let's go ahead and

put this up there on the screen. So on Monday when Trump or sorry, on Tuesday, when Trump was arriving in New York City, let's put the tweet up here, please, one D one CNN literally went out of its way to get a camera on board a speedboat which they chartered trying to capture a few second shot just of Trump's plane landing in New York City, in addition to an aerial helicopter shot that they also had going on. Now, imagine the mechanics that are going through here. We're hiring

a freelance cameraman. We're having a live camera link to this individual. We are chartering a speedboat is it the Hudson River whatever, whichever river there near LaGuardia. That's half of that. We also have video of what this major investment looked like. So guys, let's go ahead and play

this for the audience. If you're watching or if you're listening on Spotify, and if your premium, I urge you to open up your phone whenever it's safe to actually watch this, let's go ahead and play it for the people. D two here please for the vo It is just absolutely incredible. Let's take a listen. I just want to note for viewers, we are seeing former President Trump's plane

land her at LaGuardia Airport in New York. That is his flight that he is taking before he is going to make his way over here to Trump Tower, Phil and Dana before he is going to be a rain tomorrow. That of course is look at the mastery of that shot. Where'd they get the sun shot? That's the helicopter Ryan, they have the area, they have the hailshah. Yeah. Think about the astronomical amount of money that was spent on

those two individual shots. That is what their news gathering dollars are going towards out of line, and everybody need a premium subscription so we can get a breaking point. Yeah, that's Trump and Deck. You're right, I said, CNN has just gone through sadly a round of layoffs and it's like cutting essential travel and ship and yet it was that expensive his boat gas boat people tell me the boat gas is very expensive. Very What do we do? What do we do? You below deck? Huh? Yeah, that's true,

that's shout. It reminds me, do you guys when CNN did that like whole hologram thing for this was a while back being in school watching this and it was like, I can't believe this is real. It was like there's no point of this other than just like you apparently have way too much money to spend. But this point they're literally talking job their job cutting. They're doing all this, they have a helicopter hovering. First of all, I actually a lot of questions. Why is helicopter able to get

that close? It's a little close and to a runway given what we do with the footag edge and the FAA, I'm not sure sure boat big yeah, I mean just they just the sheer amount of resources that they are spending on this entire circus. It just comes back to like Trump was great for ratings and for all the talk of Chris Licked saying, oh we're gonna move away to Trump all this the day he's back, they went off.

That's a Jeff Stucker playbook. Move go all out that you can for Trump because they haven't changed it all isn't working. Yeah, because it isn't working. And so now they're right back to their bread and butter. It's just unbearable. So anyway, there you go. Now, if they went stripe fishing right like off the boat afterwards, yes, maybe they charged like they had a little company retreat on it.

After company retreat, that's some team building. Become a premium subscriber so that we can get a boat, and I guess we could know we would never spend your hard earned money on ship like that, which is why their business model is bullshit and our business model is not. We spent our time here. Wow, we've been up here for almost two and a half hours. Trump was for twenty of it while breaking all this down for you. We brought you the Trump and indictment, the pre show.

I guess like everything that happened after the arrest, we reacted to the speech. We were able to call some elections here and all that live. Thank you all to our premium subs, who not only submitted questions that were actually great for our legal guests, but also just for enabling the work here. You know, it costs a lot of money to put on these streams crew, you know, disrupt the schedule, rent studio, et cetera. So thank you

all for supporting our work. And I just want to say how much more beautiful this is going to look in our new studio when it's all done very very soon. I cannot wait, We really like, we really can't wait to reveal that to everybody. It's a look. So the actual truth is it's a poe and that we're retiring now because he's going to the White House. You are all actually going to love it. Whenever we do our next live stream from the desk and from that new studios.

I'm so pumped. I can't even stop smiling just thinking about it. So we love all of you. We will post a lot of this over on Wednesday. Chris wan will be back on Thursday, and then Ryan Emily will have a special counterpoint show for you guys on Friday. So you are not missing on anything, right, We'll see you later, see y'all, see you then,